Strategy Groups
Research and Knowledge Exchange
Hear from Vice Chairs Dr. Jackie Musgrave and Dr. Eva Miskuska as they explains the role, purpose and future aspirations of the policy, lobbying and advocacy strategy group.
Mission Statement
To support the next generation of graduate professionals to make positive contributions to the care and education of babies, young children and their families, through research and dissemination.
Full Statement
To encourage and support knowledge production and co-production between early childhood students, academics and researchers, research participants, and policy makers and implementers. To enhance student capacities to disseminate research findings in different formats and for a wide range of audiences. To promote the value of early childhood research for informing policy and improving practice. The Research and Knowledge Exchange Strategy Group leads the ECSDN student publications and conferences.
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Vice Chairs
Dr Jackie Musgrave
Co-Vice Chair/Student Development
Jackie is Programme Lead for Early Childhood and Education Studies (Primary) at The Open University. Her research brings together her experiences as a Registered Sick Children’s Nurse and as a teacher of early childhood and explores the intersection of health, early education and inclusion. Jackie has published extensively, a sole authored book, several co-authored and co-edited books, as well as many chapters. Jackie has been Vice-chair of the ECSDN with responsibility for Research and Knowledge Exchange. Her work within the Network is focused on developing students’ voice as researching professionals. Jackie manages the ECSDN Student Publishing Opportunity
Dr Eva mikuska
Co-Vice Chair/Professional Development
Dr Eva Mikuska is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Portsmouth, School of Education, Language and Linguistics (SELL). Her work seeks to broaden current views on early childhood education and care in England with the aims to produce a more generative, ethical, and political way to enact ECEC research. Her language skills (native Hungarian, and Serbo-Croat) and her research enables her work to have synergy with a national and international set of ECEC researchers.
Members
Dr Jo Josephidou
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Leading student papers
Dr Jo Josephidou is Programme Lead of Early Childhood at The Open University. She was a primary school teacher (Early Years) for many years before entering Higher Education in 2009. Her PhD focused on appropriate pedagogies with young children and how practitioner gender may impact on these. Currently, Jo is working collaboratively on a piece of research which focuses on babies’ and toddlers’ opportunities to engage with the outdoor environment and nature funded by The Froebel Trust.
Dr Tim Clark
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Dr Tim Clark is a Senior Lecturer in Education and Childhood and an Early Career Researcher at the University of the West of England, Bristol. He has 20 years’ experience of working in early years education, including 12 years leading and managing early education provision for a community organisation in Bristol. Tim’s research focuses on different aspects of researcher development, primarily exploring doctoral pedagogy. He Is particularly interested in student’s methodological decision-making, including approaches to research with children and engagement with creative research practices.
Zoe Lewis​
Zoe is a senior lecturer at Birmingham City University where she leads the undergraduate Early Childhood Studies course. Zoe has worked as an early years teacher and leader and is currently studying for an EdD where her research seeks to understand the role of the material environment in children’s creativity.
Dr. Amanda Norman
Dr Amanda Norman is a Senior Lecturer (Early Education) at the University of Winchester and convenor of the early years strand within the CREATE research centre. Before this post she was co-lead of a successful day nursery, and programme lead, both teaching in further and higher education for over twenty-five years. Amanda’s research is underpinned by a Froebelian philosophy and Person-centred approach. Her primary focus of current research is on the professional role of practitioners, particularly those working with children under three, and psychotherapeutic principles and approaches in early years education. As a therapeutic play specialist and counsellor, she is drawn to biographical and ethnographic research as a methodology. This has also further developed into an interest about relationships, particularly between children, practitioners and parents, developing thinking about how the nexus of the past informs contemporary practice.